


Summer Haze

by Kitsoa



Category: BIRDMEN - 田辺イエロウ | Tanabe Yellow
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Future Fic, Gen, Nestmates AU, adulting woes, and tons of headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:09:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7342195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsoa/pseuds/Kitsoa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another day, another dance for the audience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Haze

**Author's Note:**

> Nestmates AU is a vaguely described flash forward of our bird kids’ daily lives as young adults and stuff. It runs on the assumption that the group doesn’t need to worry about Eden or anything, but the details of which are up to the imagination. Anything the manga’s currently investigating or poses as mysterious has either been ignored or headcanoned into something. The kids are already well adjusted to their life and abilities, they are just dealing with the struggles of suppressing their nature and fitting in with the Majority.
> 
> The big take-away is Eishi’s finally found his chill.
> 
> Also (#76) Summer Haze in my writing prompt series.

“Here’s your change sir.” The clerk had a wooden tone to her pleasantries. Sure it was the thousandth time she recited her script, but Eishi had a particularly unsettling aura. He registered the tension in her neck only after he sensed her unexplainable anxiety press against him. Kamoda was better at these interactions, but _he_ was the one cooking tonight.

He dismissed himself with a mechanical thank you and took his bag of groceries to the street. The walk was long and if not for his impeccable tolerance of nature’s extremes, the evening heat would’ve swallowed him and his sweltering monkey suit whole. He was a strange sight, collar buttoned tight against his neck, suit jacket stubbornly hanging with questionable snugness on his shoulders. If the passersby knew the distance of his trek he’d be admitted somewhere with certainly. Even Sagisawa had made his claims against Eishi’s on-foot insistence, but the short young man made it clear that he was not going to have a repeat of that April morning transit commute, even if he had to walk miles home to avoid it.

A familiar irritation was slowly bubbling as Eishi pushed forward with his purchased goods. Self loathing. The lighting, the temperature, the story-- everything about this dying day was a hopeless repeat of the previous evening and that was a fact that frustrated him to no end. He had walked miles from interview to interview, he had splashed on countless strained smiles, and had fumbled with innumerable social rhythms that were already frighteningly dull. He understood going in that his incomplete college degree was going to be a hard sell to most of these desk jobs, but he wasn’t asking for anything more than a data-crunch temp position. 

It was just like with that clerk though. 

Frankly, he was exhausted. Each step seemed to weigh him down with dragging force and the haze of the heat cooked him into a lethargic stupor. This was just wrong. Why was he doing this to himself?

_You need money._

Oh yeah. He was an adult.

His back itched. Eishi acknowledged the sensation with a musing hum as he continued to walk, grounded. It was times like this that the Rules posted on the refrigerator grew blurry in his memory. It didn’t _exactly_ make sense to anchor themselves like this. If his fruitless job hunting and Sagisawa’s dropping workplace approval meant anything it was that there was just something about them that was an instinctive deterrent against this coexistence. Such a fact would ruin them in days. His type A personality made a vaguely encouraging spreadsheet of irrefutable laws the nestmates must follow to “get through the week”. He lauded himself as the biggest enforcer of these rules, but even he found himself questioning this pointless attempt to fit the square peg in the circle hole.

Discipline. They had to eat somehow.

A dripping sound sparked him out of his contemplation. One of the grocery bags was leaking.

Umino’s ice cream. Damn her gluttonous sweet tooth.

Intelligent design didn’t exactly consider the food chain when concocting advanced humanoids. They were a far cry from ‘wild’ considering their convenience store dependency. With no greater excuse than a harpy’s rage, Eishi ducked into an alley and pawed at his tie. 

Rationalizations were already scrolling through his mind, but he was pretty sure the only person who would give him any lip at all was Sagisawa and Eishi rarely found the energy to bust _him f_ or breaking a Rule. A low voice, that sounded a little like Takayama at his most coy, mused on the absolute disaster this was becoming. Eishi grumbled as he let the mark on his back burst into the swirling tendrils of black armor. He flexed his talons unconsciously and gave his thrumming wings a flexing flap before he took to the skies.

Eishi almost sang along with his powerful wingbeats as he climbed. He even granted himself a laugh when he almost let the expensive job hunting suit fall to the earth.


End file.
